More Waxy Stuff

ok i had to address each of these individualky
your dreads here look leses waxy them many ive seen so yea i believe u did follow directions, but , its not the wax in the dreads thats so shocking but the wax on your forehead thats melted therre caking your skin clogging your pores and making your forehewad look shiny even lumpy with wax

how hard was it to get the dirt out?
i go camping alot had my dreads drag through the mud till they were caked with mud to tripple theyre thicknesds and a quick dip in a mudy river removed it all
after a few weeks that mudy 1 quick wash had me clean as usual, with no problems..and through it all they never smelled (exceopt the 1 day after getting out of the river i put em in aw hat damp, only for 15 minutes but tht made em smell funky.. spent an hour drying em by a fire and they were fine the next day)

ok this when u look at the close big version is well made me really sad toi see your hair in such condition
look really close at the individual "dreads" (sorty for the quotes but after i explain whst i see you'll understand) close inspectionm they look like almost perfectly straight hair (with a lil braid near tthe roots) and the straight hairs just glued together
no criss cross knottiness, hell hardly any knots that i can see at all, just perfectly straight hair st]uck unable to move
then theres the roots that look greasy and sticky im sure the scalp too felt gross (no offence meant love u amy)
theres a very inconsistant look to em..a few dio seeem knotty.. some seem twisted like a few strands wrapped ariund eachother and glued in place
many look pretty straight unknotted just stuck together then theres a few that do seem pretty matted (but is hard to tell really since the frizzis kinda glued to em)

whoa.. ya want a really dramatic effect zoom way in on that so like 1 inch of scalp or hair fills the screen and then scrool around
the scalp looks greasy caked in wax the roots look stiff
some dreads do look matted with the frizz in tight lil curls glued to it but other dreads look extremely undreaded just caked together, particularly the bottom left area
ah well was trying to find a close pic of mine thats not blury for comparison buyt cant find 1
but my point the hairs look too stiff to move and too stuck together to knot
ontop of that is the shiny greasyness that cant be doing anything good to your scalp aned skin


can u post a recent closeup simular to this? i think u would really benifit from some agressive wax removal free that hair up to breathe and move and it'll lock much faster

oh and the 1 with your hair standinfg straight out stiff like sticks made me laugh..lol

(not in a mean way tho)


its true those sites condition u into believing you need the crap
and like in the vid he says we offer phone suport if u call in saying why do i look like shit they say relax youir doing fine...just add more wax..lol
derry was severely overwaxing, and she caklled them over and over and theyre advice was always...add more wax

how long did youir waxy dreads last smelly? 7 months before u started over wax free?

i want you to do a progress comparison thread wax vs wax free and lets see oif the progress isbnt twice as fast without wax

 

or she could just have oily skin like the best of us


my blonde dreads stayed for a grand total of 6 months, yeup, i caked 'em.

 

Yikes Amy..those after camping pics are crazy!!!
Maybe I was just paranoid that they (the fuzz babies) would fall out. As I said I have very thick coarse hair that is resistant to just about everything. When I quit waxing mine were falling apart too and I FREAKED! I didn't know if it was because I had stopped waxing, or because they were just doing what they were going to do anyway. I had a few that were completely undone except for at the roots, and I did re-back comb those two or three and they have come along , almost nicer than the others. I just dont know......dont know....dont know. I can see everyones point really. If I do ever let this set go I think I would try another route outta pure curiosity. Ahhhh my mind and its ramblings!!!

 

Actually yeah it was mostly sweat lol And I'm a bit of a moisturiser fiend

 

edit...if I do another set I will make sure it is atleast after 2 years so SE has to come party with me

 

callie - my fuzzlocks have gotten quite loose.. yeah theyre 3 days old, but im not too worried actually.. i thought id be proper shittin myself about it, but its all good


amy - moisturiser is your friend! i wear it every day but it really makes me oily and greasy, especially in the summer, but if i dont wear it my face flakes =/

 

soaringeagle, with regard to them looking like straight hair, unknotted and just twisted... you're maybe not that familiar with the early stages of backcombed dreads...

Firstly, these pics are only after 10-14 days, so there are not any proper knots yet. Backcombing pushes and folds hairs up on themselves. You can see from my before and after hair lengths that what you are seeing obviously can't just be straight hair, otherwise they'd be a lot longer. Here's a couple of shots from when my dreads were being "made":




In the first shot you can see a backcombed section before it's been waxed, and then the other waxed ones. The appearance created is that of straight hair twisted around, but it isn't.
Even now, when my knots are all scrambled up and tight, there are short wispy baby hairs which kinda lay flat on on the outside of some of them.

The washing after that camping holiday was hardcore. Obviously the dirt was all stuck into wax, unlike the regular water-soluble dirt in your dreads, so it took a lot of washing.

I've noticed in other people's wax-caked pics the wax just seems to be stuck on in random lumps, rather than applied "properly" (er lol) and worked into the dread. The reason you can't see bits of solid wax on the surface of my dreads is because it's all melted in. Bleh.

Umm...what was the other thing...oh yeah the smell. Well of course the wax was sealing in the damp. The tent was really humid, there were heavy dews in the mornings, we were pitched on grass, the days were hot and sweaty and wax-melty (plus DHHQ's wax has a lower melting point than KB's, or seemed to anyway). When we got home all the camp-bedding was damp too. I'm sure without wax in my dreads, all moisture would have disappeared during the day in the hot sun and I wouldn't have smelled of wet dog (cute on a dog but not on your head).

I'll look for a good close-up of my current knots for you.

 

Here's that dreadscan from 7 months, complete with leftover hemp and bits of skin


Full-size: http://flickr.com/photos/amybird8/3208848799/sizes/o/in/set-72157611793257049/

 

would love to come party with you

often we hear after a 1st backcombing they unravel completely only to re knot on theyre own over the next few weeks
i really dont think backcombing is that much of a help in some cases
and like u my hair had a mind of its oewn was resistent to anything i tried making it do..which was perfect for just letting it do what it wanted

i have babies poip up all over all the time, most i just let happen when the hairs long eniough to dread, but, i hate loose hairs blowing in my eyes on long roadtrips so hairs that arent quite long enough to dread on theyre own id simply tie a knot in the end then flip that end thriugh 2-3 times losely just to hold it together lil bit then leave it alone..in weeks it will dread just fine
which leads me to believe what i already know from my oldest 1st dreads which were started by forcing a few beads onto perfectly straight hair
if u just add a bead or something to the end to hold em together they will dread pretty fast if left alone
in a way thatsthge flawed theory behind wax.. hold it all togerther and it will dread, however the reality is wax glues it so it cant move easily, and is applied along the entire length of dread so theres no movement within the dread at all


a bead works by at oncce holindg the hairs in close proximity, and alowing movement too (the movemebt even occurs inside the bead)
generaly the dreading happend from bead upwards if the beads near the ends, but if theres 6 or more inches below the bead it'll move and knot just fine
hell just the act of putting the bead on pushes some hairs up as the bead slides up causing the 1st knots and loops which will then build on themselves

now to get into the natural process which essentialy all dreads must go through to dread wether started initialy by backcomb other methods or were just alowed to go on theyre own
hair moves unrestricted..in 3 dimensions forward back up down left right some hairs push up others move forward others jump to the left or right..freely you can see how when 1 hair goies 1 way and another another eventualy they will cross paths and become entangled
hairs that move up create lopps for hairs that move right to slip through and so forth

if the movements too restrickted not alot happens..iuf its too free hairs from1 side of the head can tangle with hairs from the other side.. this is why you have the option of ripping to keep hairs in each dread from grabbing other dreads..or beading to hold hairs in the intended dread

now lets examine backcombing n twist n rip
backcombing u take straight hairs and poush them in 1 direction.. towards the scalp (up) once up high as can be they only have the option of right left forward backward compressed as far as thery can go..with no real locking no hairs crossing through loops or tangling with eachother
to lock they have to loosen up so hairs can move where they want in 3 dimensions criss cross and really lock
twist n rip works simular but the twisting encourages some haphazardness wich will become locks quicker..abnd im not sure but ui think some actual knotting might occur

now whats wax do to the picture?
it keeps backcombed hair backcombed preventing movement..the hair cant loosen up to alow the hairs to move around and lock
it gives the ilusion that you have dreads because the shape looks right they stay togethber and look knotty sorta but its really just bafckcombed hair glued in place and seems to get tighter with waxing because they feel hard (hardness equales a wax core that is hard.. dreads should be somewhat spongey,..its hair after all not wood)
the ilusion of quick maturity just comes from the amount of buildup making them seem solid
but to really mature the knots must move and become tightly locked together..not in aw stickly substance but in nothing but good ol knottiness

 

some areas do look fairly dready with lil budding going on and definitaly knotty..other ares just look stuck together
in general its all making progress just really seems some aress the wax really limmited the progress..by 7 months they should be getting fairly tight and looking like mature dreads

im cuirios to see what changes would happen after 3 weeks of agressive wax removal

 

Maybe I need to try and get some more informative photos of my dreads as they are now... if you could hold them up to your face and feel them with your fingers you would find them very tightly knotted, with lots of textural variation, "budding" as you call it. At the roots there are about 2 inches of naturally knotted new growth, and the rest of the length is as knotted as hair can get, I assure you. Maybe you're being misled by my straggly loose ends or the strays that sort of lay flat on the outside of some of the dreads (a lot have somehow got themselves knotted like that, just laying down the length of the dreads lol). In a week they'll be eight months old, but they haven't really changed for a couple of months now (apart from ongoing changes at the roots) because they're as tight as they can get. They're "done", so-to-speak.

 

Right!

I didn't want to cut open one of my dreads just to hunt for some wax which may or may not be there, because if there hadn't been any I think I'd have been more gutted than if there had, and my dreads have all been so settled and knotted and sorted for ages now. However, soaringeagle with all your scaremongering and refusal to acknowledge that someone who used wax may have wax-free dreads later on, and going on about trying a wax removal (even though I have done countless thorough washes, back when my dreads were still loose enough that I would've been able to feel any wax in them, plus two lots of the deep clean recently) you have given me a growing paranoia about maybe having wax in my dreads still.

Some of my dreads are really really hard in places. I've been assuming these are just very tight knots, given that my hair length was reduced by almost two thirds in places this seemed logical. Naturally since reading this forum I'd become concerned that the hardness was wax.

So, I just did some investigating. I picked open a really hard lump at the end of one of my dreads and discovered....that I had just un-picked some really great knots I then selected the hardest portions of a few other dreads and used a crochet hook to turn them inside-out a bit, dragging bundles of hair from the centre of the hard part to the outside, and discovered....more really fantastic tight knots.

I think what I thought was a smell of wax the other day was just from the brass fire poker which always leaves a smell on my fingers if I don't use the oven glove, and my forum-induced paranoia was giving me ideas.

Like I've said a few times now, it's not a black and white closed case. I hope you are not too disappointed, soaringeagle, that mine was not a horror story. Perhaps it is a good thing, a word of encouragement and comfort to those who used a lot of wax in the beginning. Soaringeagle knows a lot about dreadlocks, of course he does and I respect that, but his words and opinions are not set in stone, and are not 100% applicable to every single case.

If you made some waxy errors, it does not definitely mean the end of your dreads

(I realise I cannot know the precise content of every single dread and might come back to this thread some time with a dread full of wax. I'll stay on the look-out and keep poking around inside them now and then...coz it would stand to reason that there would at least be some wax in there somewhere)

 

*hugs* SE isn't God. If you like your dreads live and let live.

 

Poor Amy!!!!! I too have been getting the paranoia and was going to do some investigating. I couldn't get the nerve...6 months of wanting and waiting, I just couldn't bring myself to do it. I had a speck of black in one of my dreads close to my face and started to FREAK, thinking it was mold. It was mascara. My only wash now is baking soda, salt, and really hot water. So I am going to assume that if I do still have small amounts of wax that it will be dissolved on its own in time. I just cant wrap my head around this "OMG I still have wax from a year ago and now it is seeping and coating all of the others nearby" stuff. What would make it seem to multiply like The Blob?
Anyway.....I'm leaving this issue alone. I used it....and as of now...I am happy with where I am at.

 

Right on SE!!!!
I dont when you are in this area if ever. Flyod Fest will be July 23-26th this year. I will be there and you would love it!!!!!!
www.floydfest.com

 

Yay to Amy and Callie.

I feel exactly the same way. Thank you for putting it out there in words better than I could muster.

I used wax and probably more than I should have. I was misled, but my dreads are fine (albiet something could come up in the future but after 1 year and 9 months i'm going to think they're fine) I totally agree that the myth of wax should be put to an end and it should not be recommended to anyone, not because one little bit of waz will ruin a dread, but for the mere reason that it isn't neccessary. I will tell everyone who ask that you just need clean hair and patience to get dreadlocks. But I am not going to gasp when someone tells me they are using wax. Merely let them know its not neccessary, and if they want to continue to use it than so be it.
SE you have amazing dreads obviously and you know what you are talking about. But really try not to scare the bejeezes outta new dreadheads into shaving off their locks because they made a few misguided mistakes along the way.

By george there is hope for us wax heads!

 

Yay look at this! A new comment just left on my site:

"...You definitely helped me decide not to use wax and given me some confidence that by doing so all my dreads won't fall apart! ...."


Wahey!

 

YAY
The main problem I had, was when the wax melted (washing my hair with hot water) it would run into other dreads
I have alot of really hard dreads that are down to knots rather than wax like yours
Alot of the worst waxy dreads were very soft so was hard to tell until I cut them open!
Hope you don't find any more wax

 

I really don't want to keep this debate going, but Alex do you think that since you used pure bees wax that had a little bit more to do with the difficulty of removal? I mean compared to what I was using (DHHQ), wouldn't pure wax be more like melting a candle in your head? Or a crayon...which I know from having kids is next to IMPOSSIBLE to remove from my cars carpet after being melted. Just a thought, for I had thought you had used DDHQ since you bash the company so.

 

Sorry, I don't think I mentioned it on the advice thread, but I used the DHHQ wax upto about May/June and then more so the beeswax!